Yesterday was my first 11 hour shift (we have one or two each month because we are very, very short on staff).

The day started normally, trains full of sleepy people and occasional chatter with the guards. I met my manager at Axminster for a brief course on perfectioning my sales (wich I have to continue doing now, thank goodness I remembered!), she was as sweet as ever and helped me get on the train (wich was delayed 16 minutes). That train started going really slow and we were told to switch to another train at Salisbury.

That was absolute chaos. The second train was delayed, packed full with people and I wasn’t even supposed to be on it I ended up squished in a junction between carriages, waiting for Woking to get off and catch the train I was supposed to cater (coming from London Waterloo).
Getting off was difficult!

I met Ismael there, thought, wich was good. He is Spanish as well and a veteran in this trolley thing. He was in the same situation as me, trying to get on a train to go home, trolley included. We chatted for half an hour and then he helped me get on my train. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have been able to get on it, it was full to the brim! But once the trolley was inside, people let me park it in a corner and all was good.

All this was apparently because there is a problem with the lines at Basingstoke (or around that area) and the trains are not getting any signals or something, so they have to go real slow and careful while the engineers try to solve the problem.
Mind you, it started on Tuesday and I don’t think they know what it is causing it yet 🙁